Balance
by lederra
Summary: Sequel to Why Me. The source was revealed in the first story now follow Chris and the resistance as they fight to take back what has been lost. T rating for now but might change later. The genres at the moment are mystery and suspence but even they may change as the story develops.
1. Chapter 1

Balance

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Charmed nor do I make any money from them, I'm just borrowing them.

Summary: Sequel to 'Why Me?' the barriers between the mortal world and the magical one have fallen and magical is now known to the mortals. At the end of the prequel to this story the true identity of the source of evil was revealed and it was not the one that every thought it would be.

* * *

Every night the dreams came and every morning Chris awoke feeling more and more confused and lost than he had the night before, not that he ever let his father or Bianca or anyone else in the resistance know that, since that awful day a few weeks before when the identity of the source of evil had been revealed, it had felt like they all were living in an awful dream.

However the reality of the last few weeks was no dream not even as a nightmare as people both magical and otherwise tried to survive in a world that was now ruled by evil. These dreams that Chris were having whenever he managed to catch some sleep were becoming his greatest curse and it seemed a punishment for a reality that the other Chris had tried to prevent by going back in time to prevent his brother from turning evil, a future reality that he had changed but it seemed not for the better as now the one who had become the source was not Wyatt Halliwell but their mother Piper.

Chris coughed a little as he sat up, running his tongue over his teeth as he tried to control the shaking of his limbs as he came back to the reality of his life, of all their life's. Many had been lost in the few weeks, some to the fighting that had taken place and others who had simply vanished without a trace, just like the other members of the Halliwell family.

Phoebe and Paige, Piper's younger sisters had not been seen since the explosion at the manor nor had their nephew Wyatt, Chris's brother and Phoebe's daughters. At first it had been thought that they had all died in the explosion but little things started to not add up or perhaps add up Chris thought to himself, as the new source Piper would not be as powerful as she was if her two sisters were dead, yes she would be powerful as the source thought Chris but for her to be able to hide what she was becoming and had become since her transformation and for her power to continue growing as it had, her two sisters had to be alive but the question the resistance had been asking was where?

Indeed if they were alive then were they helping her willingly or against their will? Chris had mused over this thought for quite a few days, his memories of his life before going to Valhalla had finally asserted themselves and as he had thought about the reality of their lives now, he could not help but think that perhaps his Aunt Phoebe was helping her sister willingly but he did not think his Aunt Paige would, at least he hoped with all his heart that she would not.

xXx

Elsewhere the source of all their present troubles stood in her new home, smiling gleefully to herself as she watched the destruction that reigned around her. The last few weeks she had not rested as she brought together her forces and her new powers in an attempt to capture those few remaining members of the resistance that had escaped that day from the caverns and the underworld to disperse like rats in the night, her former husband and youngest son amongst them.

She had been surprised and then angered when she realised what had become of Chris when he had vanished all those years ago, she had been so sure that he had been dead and had prayed that now he was gone that she would have no problem implementing her plans for the new order of things. Despite what people had thought, she had not hated Chris in fact the opposite and she had known that what she had had to do would have destroyed Chris and a small part of her, the part where she had remembered she was a mother, his mother did not ever want to see his innocence and love of live destroyed in the new order that would come about once she had finished what she had all those years ago set out to do.

xXx

Chris increased the speed of his bench presses as he went through his morning exercises which despite being on the run and trying to bring together the remaining resistance members he still spent a few minutes each morning doing when he awoke going through his exercises that would keep both his mind and body strengthen for the long fight he knew that they all had ahead of them.

Those few precious minutes that he exercised each morning also gave him a chance to exercise the demons that entered his dreams every night, dreams that he was not all together certain were just dreams or perhaps warnings of what was coming and throughout those dreams he kept hearing a voice call his name, it was a voice he knew, it was his brothers Wyatt's voice.

"Bitches', every one of them."

Behind him he heard the voice of Bianca, the Phoenix witch who had been with him since they had fled the caverns, she had not left his side when the others of her coven had left to join the source, his mother, and he still had trouble believing what he had learned that day. He would never have thought that his mother would become evil, she and her sisters had epitomised all that was good, and they had been the greatest force of good in the whole universe.

Chris's motions did not slow as Bianca made her way over to him. Up. Down. Up. Down. He continued to work out the kinks of his body as Bianca watched him for a few minutes before speaking again.

"Chris, your father sent me to find you. He and the other leaders are gathering to discuss what we are going to do."

xXx

Destruction and chaos had rained down on the world, plunging it into darkness as Piper's forces had spread across first San Francisco, America and then the rest of the World as Piper unleashed evil upon it. A fitting punishment Piper thought to herself as she watched her forces crush all those who had tried to stand against her in those first few desperate weeks the demons and all those with evil in their hearts revelled in the fact that they no longer had to hide from the world and taken pride in crushing all and any who tried to stand against them.

From the very first day, they had done malicious things, hateful things to those they conquered but neither they nor their new mistress could have cared for the suffering they caused to those now beaten in to submission by their actions, in fact they revelled in it, and in the new sense of power and control it gave them.

Not that their mistress allowed them to feel too much of the power that was now being created by their actions, Piper did not want them to then raise up against her not until she was ready and then they would be as helpless as those they had enslaved. Piper smiled grimly herself as she thought of that day when it finally would arrive.

Walking over to the other side of the cavern where there was a wall of swirling lights, she stepped through the barrier that was made by them and walked over to the first of the cocoon shaped objects that rested there. Laying her hand onto the first one she again smiled grimly but also gleefully as she thought of what lay inside of each cocoon, her flesh and blood, and kin.

'Soon my sisters, very soon. 'She thought as almost lovingly ran her hand over the cocoon that contained her sister Paige and looked across at the one that contained her son Wyatt.

* * *

A/N: Hope you like the first chapter, sorry if it seems a bit confusing but I want to keep you all on your toes. I hope it has answered a few questions for you and perhaps started some new ones off. As always please review and let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

It was the end of another day and Chris was once again going through his exercises, the meeting with his father and the other leaders had not been as productive as he would have liked. The resistance was only weeks old and already it was showing cracks as the different factions within it could not agree over what was to be done to Piper Halliwell once they took her down.

There were those who wanted to see her stripped of all her powers and then cast out of the magical community to live amongst those who she had enslaved but there were others still who wanted her killed for what she had done.

Jack-knifing to his feet, Chris crossed the room to look out of the window; across the bay towards San Francisco bracing his hands above his head as he gazed through the broken window towards a city that was slowly being destroyed.

He saw hell.

He saw a city where freedom was gone.

He saw….home.

Situated across the bay from the San Francisco, he had a direct view of the city, of the destruction that had so far been wrought by the demons under his mother's control, here and there a few scattered lights could be seen in buildings that were still standing, illuminating the dark murky sky.

Chris was grateful for the desolate industrial area that he and the rest of the resistance had found when they had had to move from their last hiding place and a few well-placed charms and spells added extra protection so that they were able to come and go without raising suspicions from the few patrolling demons that had passed by.

Chris narrowed his eyes as he saw another demon patrol pass by their hiding place, he wanted nothing more than to go out and take them apart, rip out their blackened decayed hearts and obliterate them for the evil deeds they had committed and he was momentarily disgusted by his thoughts.

He had sworn to do whatever was necessary to stop the evil that was spreading across the world but he thought at what price. Would he lose the one thing that made him who he was, his conscience or would he be strong enough to resist the temptation to give into revenge and all the other darker human emotions he had, tip the balance between what made him good and the demons evil.

"You've been staring out of that window for a while."

Chris blinked as he was dragged from his thoughts, turning around he noticed Bianca behind him watching him from the shadows. He arched an eyebrow at the Phoenix witch as he took in the sight of her studying him.

"There's something you need to see."

Bianca said as she uncurled her body from the position she had been standing for the last half hour as she had watched Chris and without another word to him she spun on her booted heel and strode out of the room. Chris remained standing where he was for a few minutes watching her disappear out of the room before following her.

A cold draft of air swirled around him as he stepped into the dark hallway leading away from the room he had been in, thick with moisture and with a crisp scent of the approaching winter to it. He spied Bianca a few feet ahead of him and stalked forward closing the distance between them.

"What's this about?"

"You'll see."

As they walked, the stone walls stretched at their side going down towards the lower levels of the abandoned factory, strategically placed lights guiding their way.

"Where is everyone?" Chris asked, only then realizing that the two of them were alone.

"They're around."

Bianca replied as she led him further down into the very bowels of the building they were temporarily residing in. Pausing at a doorway, she waited only long enough to check that there was no one else nearby as she pulled him into the empty room.

xXx

The demon cringed as the one who had finally become the source a few weeks before, lashed out at the incompetence she saw in those who had chosen to follow her and obey her commands. Piper was furious; so far every patrol she had sent out to look for those who had dared to form resistance to her authority had failed her.

In her fury Piper had already zapped a dozen or more low levels demon into the middle of oblivion and still it had not satisfied her anger at being thwarted. Whirling around she spied the only demon still in the cavern as her whirlwind of emotions had got the better of her and moved in its direction.

As she was about to zap this one as well her attention was distracted as a portal opened on the far side of the cavern and a woman appeared.

"WHAT IS TAKING HER SO LONG?"

Piper screamed in her rage at the leader of the Phoenix witches as she stood before her.

Meredith bowed her head to her as she acknowledged the words that Piper screamed at her. Although she did not show it, she was frightened by the being that stood before screaming her frustration about her granddaughter at her. She knew that the source wanted to get her hands on the one the Valkyries had trained to stop her but at the moment that young man was hidden from them and the only one who seemed to know where he was, was her granddaughter Bianca who had volunteered to stay behind with the resistance when the rest of them had left and joined the source.

"She is doing what she can to bring the warrior to you my mistress but there are many around him and she can only bring him when she knows she can get him away from them. Never fear my mistress she will bring him to you and you can then do whatever it is you wish to him."

Piper howled in rage at Meredith's words and raising her hands she zapped Meredith from the cavern.

xXx

Bianca rested her head on Chris's shoulder wondering what it was about him that made her feel the way she did. No other man had ever affected her, in quite the same way Chris did. There was just something about him, a feeling that they were meant to be more than what they were.

She had stayed behind when the rest of her order had left, to keep an eye on Chris and to take him when the time came to the source and that time had been tonight but when she had pulled Chris into this room she had been unable to bring herself to open the portal that would have taken the two of them to the underworld where she was to have handed Chris over to Piper's demons.

Instead she had given into her most basic emotions.

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A/N: Hope you like the second chapter, as always please review and let me have your thoughts on it. :-)


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: This chapter will be on a moment or two of interaction between Chris and his father.

* * *

Leo grabbed his son pulling him into an alleyway just in time, the two of them and several other resistance members had been cut off from their base after a recon mission into what was once downtown San Francisco, had gone badly wrong. They had thought the route that had been chosen was safe as normally no one ever came this way but they had come across several demon patrols in the last hour and both Chris and his father had somehow become seperated from the others in their patrol. They were now trying to circle around yet another demon patrol and it was taking them longer than either of them would have liked.

Twenty minutes later, Chris had dropped his backpack and was crouched down behind a ruined wall next to an old abandoned warehouse, it had been a place that he remembered that he had often come to back before he had been taken to Valhalla.

Peering over the top of a ruined wall, he was able to see that although the area ahead seemed clear, a little further along he could see a demon patrol was searching through a deserted building about a half a block away, but he decided that they were far enough away not to notice him and his father, so both men decided to rest for a few moments before continuing the journey back to their base and the rest of the resistance.

"Seems safe enough here dad, there is a patrol about half a block down but they should not find us for a while yet."

Leo tested the ground to make sure it was dry before sitting down; Chris smirked at his father's caution and just plonked himself down on to the ground, he wasn't bothered if the ground was a little damp. He unzipped his backpack and handed his father a bottle of water while grabbing another for himself out of the pack.

His father gratefully took the water from Chris, watching him covertly from under his eyelashes as his son rummaged through his pack for the remaining bottle. This was one of the few times that they had been alone together since the night Leo had found out about his wife and it was good to be able to watch Chris and see just how much his son had changed in the time that he had been away.

"What?"

Leo glanced up and realized that Chris had been aware of him covertly watching him.

"Nothing, I was just remembering you as a little boy back before all this this started."

Chris leaned back against the wall, keeping a close watch as to where the demons were at that moment and what they were doing before answering his father.

"Those are times that I don't like to think about, I don't have a lot of good memories of the last year that I lived with mom and Wyatt before I was taken. When you left us, mom changed, it was not noticeable at first but after a while, it was like mom had become a someone else, she wasn't mom any more but an angry stranger who was lashing out at everyone but more specifically me."

Chris told his father sadly and then Leo heard him ask in almost a whisper.

"Was it my fault?"

For a moment Leo just stared at Chris, Chris's question had caught him off guard.

"No never….Whatever made you think that it was?"

Chris looked everywhere but at his father, glancing down at the ground and he was not aware that his father had moved closer to him until he felt his father's arm on his own.

"Chris? Look at me."

Chris glanced back up at his father; fear was evident in his eyes that his father did blame him for the breakdown of his marriage and the consequence breaking up of the family.

"Whatever made you think it was your fault?"

Chris bit his lower lip as he looked at his father.

"Aunt Phoebe said…..."

Chris stopped unable to go on as memories surfaced of his Aunt Phoebe yelling at him one day, not long after his father had left saying, that it was all Chris's fault that the family had been broken up all because he was such a waste of space. She had told him also that he had no right to the Halliwell name due to his lack of powers and if was up to her then Chris would be packed off to foster care.

"Chris?"

Immersed in his memories he had forgotten that his father was with him and it was not until Leo gripped his arm a little harder and gave him a shake that he came out of his trip down memory lane. Glancing at his father again, Chris told him what his Aunt Phoebe had said to him that awful day.

As Leo listened to his son, his horror and anger grew at what Phoebe had said and done to him.

"Look at me Chris, you were not the reason why your mom and I split up, you hear me. It was not your fault, none of it and your Aunt Phoebe had absolutely no right putting the blame on your shoulders."

Leo told his son grimly, as he promised himself that if he ever saw Phoebe again that he was going to have more than a few stiff words with his former sister-in-law.

"So why did you leave? Was it to do with you being an Elder?"

Leo sat for a moment before replying to Chris, even now after all this time he did not really know why he had left his family but the one thing he did know was that it was not his youngest son's fault, not then and certainly not now.

"There were many reasons Chris, not just with me being an Elder for one reason but none of them was your fault. I think your mother and I had just got to a stage in our marriage where although we still wanted you and your brother, we just didn't want each other."

All of the sudden from down the block, an explosion ripped through what had once been a diner where just a few minutes before a demon patrol had entered. Glancing around the wall again, both men could see smoke billowing out of the building and across the street from it, two bodies could be seen fleeing the immediate area, Leo arching his eyebrows as he turned back to Chris.

"Looks like we are not the only one's fighting back."

Watching the two runners as they disappeared from view Chris gave a start as he realised that one of them was a young woman and as he caught sight of her face he realised something else he knew her, it was one of his cousin's, one of Phoebe's daughters.


	4. Chapter 4

Chris was silent as he studied the terrain around him and the group of resistance fighters he had left their headquarters with waited silently as well. He felt Bianca's fingers on his arm and glanced to his left to look at her, he was dressed as all of them were.

In clothes that blended into the background and made them look like the any other homeless person that could be found in this downtown area of San Francisco before the war that had erupted with the revealing of who the source was, this area had always been known as a hot spot for those unfortunate few who had no homes to go to.

Almost twenty members of the resistance surrounded him as they waited for his orders that would either find them triumphant in what they were about to do or dead because of his inadequacy, Chris feared that what he was about to order would cost these brave few their lives and he prayed that the Intel they had was correct.

He shrugged off the feelings of doubt that he had, they would do them no good if he did not get his acts together, he thought. He smiled as he felt Bianca's fingers trace a pattern on his forearm, calming him and reigning on his feelings of doubt, the pattern that Bianca seemed to tracing on his arm brought back memories and images of his time in Valhalla everything had been so harmonious then despite the nature of why he had been there and the training he had received from Freya and others of her kind.

"Everything seemed so pure and right there," he smiled as he spoke quietly to Bianca.

Bianca nodded and gave a peck on the cheek.

"It was only an illusion of what you should have been doing with your life Chris; you were a child that was taken forcibly from your home. What is pure about that?"

Chris closed his eyes and leaned forward into her touch, their foreheads resting against each other, as his memories of Valhalla warred with the reality of what his life had become. He could see Bianca's smile as she did her job to keep him calm, his powers were still manifesting themselves and it seemed that Bianca's presence kept him from losing it all the time while his powers readjusted themselves inside his body and psyche.

"Don't let your memories control you Chris; they will only hinder what you have to do." She told him sadly.

The building they were currently sheltering in felt claustrophobic and it took all of Chris's concentration to keep the feelings of something not being right at bay. It was the middle of the day and the heat beating down acted like a catalyst, lowering the amount of time it took for images of those who they had already lost in this war to emerge into his mind. So many so far had been lost either to death or being captured by the demon army that his mother controlled.

"It doesn't matter Bianca what my memories are, I want a future for not just you and me but also them."

He said nodding towards the area that the others with them occupied. A feeling of dread filled him as he once again glanced around at those who were following his lead. Shaking his head slightly again he knew he had to rid himself of these feelings of doubt and dread especially of what they were about to do worked.

He remembered back to the maps and Intel that he had gone through while helping with the planning of this little diversion that he and others were about to do with luck Piper and the demon army would not realise until it was too late. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly he glanced at his watch and realised it was time for them to begin their part in the attack.

"Get everyone up and ready."

He told Bianca, getting up and moving into position.

xXx

In her headquarters, Piper looked over the plans that were laid out upon the table on the middle of what she was now calling her war room. Smiling to herself she thought soon so very soon the resistance would be crushed and she would get her hands onto her husband and his young protégé that she learned the Valkyrie's had trained, she still did know the identity of the young man concerned not that it mattered to her who he was or had been before the war, it would not stop her killing him when the time came.

"You want me to tell you this is a diversion for the real attack that the resistance are planning."

Piper glanced up at one of the demons who were one of her leading fighters in this war. He was short for his kind and had the arrogance that she had come to associate with his breed of demon but he was also she knew devious in that he thought that she thought he was intelligent but Piper laughed to herself, he was not intelligent but stupid like all of his kind in thinking he could get one over her, her who was the source of all the power in the land and realms that their kind stalked.

The demon was smirking as he watched the emotions going through the eyes of the one who was now the source. He was messing with her and he saw everything in her eyes before she shut down the emotions going through her, he knew he was playing a serious game and if she ever realised that he was playing her then he knew that he would be blown out of existence but he was unable to help himself, to stop doing what he was doing.

"I know this is a diversion you moron." Piper snarled at him.

She hated that she had allowed her emotions to be so visible in her eyes, she smirked as she remembered something her grandmother had told her when she had been young about how a person's eyes are the window to a person's soul. Well these morons I control will not see any more of my emotions; I will blind the more if I have to. Taking note of how the other demons in the room were watching the interaction and her and the idiot as she mentally thought of him she could see the thoughts that were going through their minds, would the source blast the insolent idiot who stood before her or would she allow him to get away with what he had just dared to say to her.

She knew that some of them thought her to be weak but they would soon learn that she was far from weak and if they didn't, well they were only demons no one would miss them if she blasted them. Thinking that he had got away with it, he went to open his mouth again and before any more insolent comments could erupt from his mouth, she raised her hand and blasted him to smithereens.

"Now anyone else wants to say anything."

Glaring at those still gathered in the room before her, cowering at her show of power, staring at the place where their fellow demon had stood just a few seconds before.

"No, no one else has anything to say…NO. Well then let's get on with crushing these insects then."

* * *

A/N: Diversion and attack in the next chapter. Will the resistanc be triumhant or will Piper? You'll have to wait and see.


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